


The Healing Properties of New York Autumn Foliage

by bourgeois



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Fluff, Hiking, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-14 23:15:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13018248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bourgeois/pseuds/bourgeois
Summary: Rafael Barba is not a stupid man.Stupid doesn’t graduate summa cum laude in high school. Stupid doesn’t get full rides to NYU and Harvard Law and take home the Dean’s Award for Excellence over trust fund kid’s whose daddies bought whole department wings. Stupid doesn’t scour dusty texts for obscure statues to pull miracle cases out of their asses on a semi-regular basis.So, no, Rafael Barba is not a stupid man, but he’s the closest to stupid an intelligent, award-winning Harvard alumnus can get.He’sin love.





	The Healing Properties of New York Autumn Foliage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rayofsonnshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayofsonnshine/gifts).



> Written for [bensonismymom](bensonismymom.tumblr.com) @ tumblr! Merry Christmas, Jul! I hope this little bit about hiking brings you a little cheer. 
> 
> Side note: I really tries to work in something about Barba turning up his hearing aid, but in the end it didn't work out. I'm ashamed of myself.
> 
> Enjoy! ♡

Rafael Barba is not a stupid man.

Stupid doesn’t graduate summa cum laude in high school. Stupid doesn’t get full rides to NYU and Harvard Law. Stupid doesn’t scour dusty texts for obscure statues to pull miracle cases out of their asses on a semi-regular basis. 

So, no, Rafael Barba is not a stupid man, but he’s the closest to stupid an intelligent, award-winning Harvard alumnus can get.

He’s _in love_.

In love with a man a decade to the letter younger than him, whose knees don’t creak and ache climbing up uneven rocks vines. A man who, when he bats those beautiful blue eyes and smiles that lazy smile, can get him to agree to something horrible and reckless, like hiking. 

“I’m going to die.”

“You’re fine,” Sonny dismisses. Rafael scowls. “Babe, look at the foliage! Isn’t it beautiful?”

Rafael has never found foliage beautiful. He could maybe consider the awed and excited look on Sonny’s face beautiful, but right now he’s hot and grumpy and not in the mood to wax poetic about dimples or sideways smiles or Staten Island accents that make the word _foliage_ sound like some exotic seafood dish. 

“Great foliage,” he says.

Sonny rolls his eyes. “Cheer up.”

“I agreed that the foliage was nice, what more do you want from me?”

“To stop sulking like a kid in summer school and enjoy this beautiful day?”

That does nothing to stop him for sulking—the opposite, really—but he grudgingly has to agree that Sonny has a point. It’s surprisingly nice out, even for New York in the fall. It helps that they’re far away from Manhattan where the air smells like grass and fresh soil instead of urine-soaked public transportation. The leaves have changed from green to warm oranges and reds. The path they’re walking is clear, minus the protruding rocks, but even those add to the picturesque Wish-You-Were-Here card setup of their hiking trail. Off to their left is a babbling stream that’s working as an almost melodic background to the soft chirping of birds.

Rafael, quite frankly, despises it all.

“How much further do we have to go?” He all but moans. “When you said ‘Let’s go hiking’ you never specified to where.”

“That’s because hiking is more of a journey thing than a destination thing,” Sonny says, hardly sounding winded. The freak. “But I’ve got a place in mind. Do you think you can make it one more mile?”

“That depends: do you think you’re strong enough to pull my withered corpse third quarters of that?”

Sonny rolls his eyes. “I highly doubt you’ll end up a withered husk in _Orange County_ , Raf. Geez, if you hate this so much why’d you even agree to come?”

 _Because your eyes are my favorite shade of blue and I’m a weak, stupid man_ , Rafael thinks, but doesn’t say.

“You’ve been on to me about hiking for ages,” he says instead. “If I were a more insecure person I might think you’ve been trying to hint at something.”

“You’re not fat, babe.”

“Interesting; I didn’t say anything about being fat.”

Sonny slows down so that they’re working side-by-side for the first time since they started this godforsaken height. He lets his fingers brush against Rafael’s eyes, a silent request to hold. He entertain the idea of denying, but Rafael is far too old to be as committed to the game of cutting off his nose to spite his own face. Mabe in his youth he could have pretended to be a man of greater resolve, but now he opens his hands so that Sonny can slip slender fingers along side his own and squeeze.

“You’re baiting me,” Sonny says simply. Not a question, and not said in annoyance, but a casual observation. He’s known Rafael long enough by now to pinpoint his tells.

So Rafael doesn’t bother denying it. “I have put on a few pounds.”

“Oh, stop.”

“It’s true. I blame your mother. She kept feeding me slices of pie even after I told her I was full.”

“You kept eating them,” Sonny points out.

Rafael stiffens. “I didn’t want to be _rude_.”

A gentle but firm tug on his arm keeps Rafael from tripping over another rock. He’s pressed against Sonny’s side now, their linked hands smushed between them. This close he can smell the aftershave Sonny uses mixed in with the scent of pine. 

“My Ma loves feeding everybody,” Sonny says, fondness lilting his voice. “You know, when I first brought you to meet her she took me to the side and told me you were too skinny?”

He curls an arm over his stomach. “Well she certainly fixed that, didn’t she.”

“Oh, come on, don’t blame her.”

“Oh, I don’t. I also blame you.”

“What? Why?”

“How many times have you made dessert this past week?”

Sonny barks a surprised laugh. “What are you talking about? You asked me to! _‘Sonny, since we’re on vacation could you pretty please make me some of your world famous bomboloni?’_ ”

“Literally none of that is accurate.”

“It’s pretty accurate.”

“Even if I did ask for your ’world famous bomboloni,’ you should know better than to indulge me,” he says accusingly. “And now I’m fat.”

Sonny sighs and squeezes his hand. Rafael is surprised at how much progress they’ve made. Talking with Sonny always did make the time fly by. Arguing with Sonny ran it into hyperspeed.

“Okay, you’ve put on a few pounds,” Sonny says. Rafael bristles up like a cat, but before he can bring up the accursed bomboloni once again, Sonny holds up his free hand to stop him. “Which is a good thing. You were so thin for a while there I thought you were gonna waste away. Then I really would be carrying your withered husk up here.”

Rafael frowns. “What are you talking about? I’m fine.”

Sonny shrugs. He’s suddenly interested in the _foliage_ again, which means he’s trying to parse out what he wants to say so as to not upset him. For all Sonny has learned his tells, he’s picked up on some of Sonny’s, too. 

Sonny inhales. “You’ve been working a lot lately. More than usual. I swear the DA has it out for you.”

“Nothing that exciting.” Rafael waves him off. The current of defensive anger in Sonny’s voice does warm him over where the gentle breeze has turned slightly chilly now that the sun is starting to hide behind the mountain peaks. “We’re just short-staffed right now.”

“Yeah, well, it still sucks. And we haven’t gotten to see each other, which means I haven’t gotten to cook for you in, like, _a month_ , and when me and Amanda dropped by to give you the Leonard file I swear you looked like you hadn’t eaten in weeks.”

Perhaps Rafael did neglect to eat anything that wasn’t pre-packaged and already warm in the near month he and Sonny had to put their date nights on hold, but he won’t say that. If he were honest, he might admit to himself that eating mac and cheese out of a tub from his local bodega while daydreaming about Sonny’s bomboloni was his way of indulging in some much needed self-pity. But he won’t do that, either.

“I just worry about you. Plus, I’m Italian. When we worry, we feed,” he jokes.

Warmth pools in Rafael’s chest. He knows how much Sonny cares about him. He knows how protective Sonny is with the people he loves, and he knows--objectively, in the smart part of his brain the doubts can’t touch--that he’s very high on that list. It’s something else entirely to be reminded of that in the soft, subtle way Sonny is rarely wont to do, more content to shout it and push his love into Rafael’s face so that he _knows_. 

Before he can formulate a witty reply that won’t betray the flutter in his ribs, they’ve come to a halt. Rafael blinks and turns to look behind him. They didn’t feel like a mile at all.

“That wasn’t a mile, was it?” He asks.

Sonny grins. “Yep. You didn’t even wither once.”

He does have a witty reply for that, but it dies when he looks up. They’re at the top of a cliff overlooking Greenwood Lake. Cool air sends ripples dancing across the surface and rustles the trees so that it looks like orange and red sparks dancing across the sky. He doesn’t realize how hard he’s squeezing Sonny’s hand until Sonny wriggles his fingers loose.

He places his hand on the small of his back and smiles. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Wow,” Rafael replies elegantly.

“I used to come up here all the time with my folks all the time during the summer. When Bella was little she used to hate the walk up. When we got to the top, though, she got real quiet real fast.”

Sonny is grinning when Rafael finally tears his eyes away from the sight. The sight of Sonny happy awakens a Pavlovian response in Rafael that makes him want to smile back, to kiss him, to agree to a thousand hikes.

He looks away before he can promise something so reckless. “I’m going to ignore you comparing me to Bella as a toddler and focus on you trying to do something nice for me.”

Sonny nudges his cheek with his nose and Rafael’s is forced to look back up into his favorite shade of blue.

“Thank you. For agreeing to come up here with me, I mean. I just wanna spend time with you.”

A thousand fucking hikes. “Any time.”

Sonny smirks. “You don’t mean that.”

“God, no, I don’t. Yes, yes, nature is beautiful and, once again, I feel I must remind you I want nothing to do with it.” He links their fingers back together and gives a soft tug. “Come on, let’s go back to your place. I’ll let you make me some bomboloni.”

Sonny laughs as he allows himself to be pulled back down the trail. The walk back down is easier, but it’s no less torture on Rafael’s knees. He leans into Sonny under the guise of being affectionate, which isn’t completely untrue, and smiles to himself when Sonny wraps an arm around his waist in support.

He’ll remember to complain tomorrow when he makes Sonny gives him an extended foot rub while they watch _Judge Judy_. For now, he takes in the smell of nature and Sonny and lets himself feel warm all over. 

There’s dessert waiting for him when they get home.


End file.
